Living Crash Test Dummies, Part 5

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Length (rounded up): 1350 words, 5 min. 30 sec.
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Living Crash Test Dummies, Part 5

Fully charged up with the surge of happiness hormones, I was basking in the afterglow of what had happened to me last night. The next morning, my eyes still saw the brightest sparks of the great firework, and every part of my body was once again re-energised with a sense of satisfaction.

I recalled the events with embarrassment. Did I actually fall in love with my plaster casts? Or did I simply lose my mind? Being a Princess in a family can have its charming moments. Being a chick with many broken bones and multiple casts can be pathetic. But being a cast-fetishist and mentally broken Princess? That's a completely different matter... The answer sounded sooo freaky and weird.

Luckily, the two nurses working the night shift didn’t report the awkward incident to the doctors. My poor Dad didn't know anything about it either, and he only came early to see his daughter in plaster in the morning.

We didn't talk about anything important. He sat by my bed, looking at the three shells that confined my two arms and one leg, which were suspended in cotton-padded slings. He asked if my fractures were still painful. (Oh, yes, a little.) How does it feel to wear these casts? (F*****g good, because they’re so heavy and large..., but I told him that I hated them, because they were so heavy and large.) Finally, Daddy gave me a piece of my favourite cake.

Unfortunately, he had to feed me, because both of my arms were held away from my body, completely captured in two huge, L-shaped long arm casts that floated in the air and dangled in slings.

So, he came and went.

My next visitor was a nurse. As a part of the daily routine, I was fed at nine o’clock, and I could have a drink, too. Of course, something non-alcoholic. Of course, I had to sip it through a drinking straw. After that, I was left alone, once again. Nobody else was in the room, except for me and my new friends (namely, the three plaster casts).

The boring hours dragged on slowly until four o’clock in the afternoon, when three of my classmates dropped in to meet me. Jim and Matt, the two weak and tall twin brothers, opened the door. Lisa followed them. This little girl with long black hair and glasses was my closest friend. Just to clarify, we're just friends. Not a girlfriend, okay?

Jim gazed at the hard, white pieces of plaster whose bulky forms firmly embraced my broken limbs. I was dressed in triple casts, with my arms and legs raised and attached to ropes. I must have looked like a strange sight.

‘Hello, Caroline. Have you changed your style? You always hated wearing white things,’ he said.

‘The doctors didn’t tell me what colours I could choose,’ I said. 'Anyway, when I woke up, I was already wrapped in these casts.'

Oh yes, thou shalt wear fashionable clothes – the first rule of staying alive in a school. Perhaps, would it be better to pick out some different colour? Do they make fibreglass casts in blonde? It would go perfectly with the light shade of my hair.

What if I would publish a fashion magazine, with stunning pictures and articles for those who appreciate casts? ‘Casts according to the latest trend - cute pink short arm casts inside! Cool female body casts from the upcoming spring/summer collection, great for your figure, with built-in bras made of plaster cast! Topless glamour models wearing long leg casts!'

‘Jim would have liked to tell you that all your friends feel sorry for you,’ Matt said, while peeping at his brother who continued to grin.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘And this is for you from the class.’ Lisa gave me a bunch of flowers. (Luckily, I wasn't allergic to pollen.)

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Please put it on the cabinet. I’ll ask for a vase.’

While I was looking at Lisa and the flowers, Jim quietly sneaked over to my bed, and sat on its edge. He reached out to probe the plaster shell that enfolded my left knee.

His fingers brushed over the rugged surface. Spurring himself on, he hit the cast several times.

‘Hey, it’s hard,’ he summed up the result of his observation. ‘As hard as my...’

‘What did you expect?’ I asked. ‘It’s not just some soft and loose bandage. It must be solid enough to hold my broken bones. It’s called plaster cast. I saw how it’s made.’

While I was telling Jim about my experience in the cast room, Matt went to the other side of the bed. It was a terribly difficult task for me to keep an eye on all of them, since they were three of them, and unfortunately, I had only two eyes at that time.

When I realised what he was up to, I was able to move my arm up and down to make it harder for him. However, my reaction to repel the enemy was both futile and belated.

‘Lisa, please stop this asshole.’ I begged for her support, in a show of female solidarity.

Matt triumphantly slid back a red marker pen into his pocket. ‘Baby, it’s too late.’

‘What have you written on my cast, you moron?’ I asked him nicely, since the text was on the outer side of the long arm cast, hidden from my view.

‘Caution, fragile girl inside!’ He laughed. ‘Handle with care! Keep her away from any ladder.’

‘Hey, stop this.’ Lisa stood between the kids and me. ‘I'm sure Caroline wants to keep her casts white and clean.’

‘Oh, yeah, really, I do.’ I nodded. I didn’t want to look like a billboard, covered in idiotic graffiti, silly slogans, greetings, and signatures.

Jim stared at my toes, which jutted out of the plaster boot, resting on the plaster toe plate at the end of the huge long cast securing my right leg.

‘If you try to tickle me, I'll punch you in the face.’ I announced the harshest of measures.

‘But how? Both of your hands are in plaster,’ he said.

He pulled back his hand, although I wasn't much of a threat to him, as the two long arm casts made me completely helpless. However, getting a hit in the face with a massive and hard plaster arm cast is only desirable if you’d like to have a fully plastered face.

‘Even if I can’t do it, Lisa still works for me, doesn’t she?’ I turned to my old-new guardian angel.

She stood by my side. ‘Surely. Jim, stop whatever you’re doing.’

‘When can you come back to school?’ Matt asked, fiddling with the ropes of the fine-tuned slings.

Swinging gently, my limbs began to lift up and down. Waves of excruciating pain flooded my nervous system as my tortured muscles continued to move along with my broken bones. Although my injured arms and leg were mostly immobilised in the casts, every portion of my body protested against the forced waggling.

‘Hey, stop it! It hurts, it hurts, it really huuuurts,’ I cried out.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, but he kindly went on torturing me.

Lisa walked over to him and slapped him in the face. ‘She’s said it hurts, okay?’

Matt wiped the smirk off his face and stopped bullying me. But it was too late. His misdeeds loosened the wires of the slings, and the weights, which had counteracted the heavy casts until now, landed on the floor with an earthquake-like thud.

Without the counterbalance, all of my plaster-casted limbs tumbled through the air. Although the blanket and the pillows provided a soft landing pad, my broken bones rattled within their plaster casings when they hit the bed. It was similar to another fall from the ladder.

Damn ladder. Damn classmates. Damn world. My deafening screams of pain echoed through the room, and shattered the windows.

to be continued

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